After an eye-catching unveiling ­onstage at Microsoft’s pre-E3 event last month, Project Spark subsequently struggled to be heard amid the glamour, guns and grousing about the Xbox One’s DRM issues and always-on internet requirements.

Yet our behind-closed-doors session on the show floor suggested it could turn out to be an early surprise hit of the next generation.

Much like Sony’s Little Big Planet – which just celebrated its eight millionth user-generated level – and Mojang’s Minecraft (seven million downloads on Xbox alone), Project Spark occupies that middle ground between game and game creator.

The impressive sample scenarios run the spectrum from clever recreations of real-world objects and concepts to full-blown XBLA-style slashers, but the central aim, ­developer Team Dakota explains, is to “put ­creation in the hands of everyone”.

The keys to this are simplicity and connectivity. Every object in Project Spark’s catalogue comes with a programmable “brain” that governs its behaviour and properties, while native SmartGlass functionality means you can craft console worlds using familiar gestures on tablets.

By either starting from scratch or pulling in presets created by the ­community and downloaded from the cloud, it’s possible to create ­complicated gaming scenarios quickly and easily.

Naturally anything you create can be shared, cross-platform, to the ­community at large. Even better, ­everything uploaded to the cloud can be “remixed” at will, allowing you to tinker with somebody else’s creation or pull it apart to see how it works.

To date, Team Dakota has only ­revealed fantasy-themed art and assets but Project Spark is so powerful and versatile that the sky – or rather the cloud – really is the limit.

And the best news of all? It will be completely free to play across all devices. Which is one part of ­Microsoft’s next-gen strategy even the company’s fiercest critics can buy into.